The much-awaited two-day conference '2nd ASMA Annual Convention and Awards 2018' sponsored by Microsoft was held at The Leela Palace, Bangalore on August 31 and September 1, 2018 on the theme of Digital Transformation of Higher Education: Emerging Role of Social Media. The event was attended by 200+ thought leaders, opinion makers and change agents from the Academia, Government and Technology sectors.

The conference commenced with lighting of the lamp. Mr. Rahul Jain (Project Director, ASMA; Director and Co-Founder, FMA Digital)delivered a welcome address. In his welcome address, Mr. Jain highlighted, "I am very happy about the wayASMA (Adoption of Social Media in Academia)has shaped up in the past four years. In our 5th year, with active involvement from government and industry partners, our resolve of being a catalyst to help academia grow further using digital media & technologies has deepened further. For last five years, our research and portal has engaged academic community in good numbers. We are also receiving some good international participation and interest, and we are hopeful to launch some international collaboration soon. This year, with an intention to take the community learnings to the next level, we have launched ASMA TV." He further added, "We also plan to launch a series of FDPs and MDPs with an objective to train 10,000 Faculties in the next five years in the areas like AI, ML, VR, Cloud, Social Media etc. He requested collaboration support from both the industry and government, and requested to extend the possible guidance, funding and direction."

Chief Guest, Prof. Anil Sahasrabudhe (Chairman, AICTE) initiated the inaugural session. He said, "It is important to use social media for training teachers as well as students." He recommended that there should be a proper dialogue between teachers and students. The institutions should try out videos, seminars and also encourage students to attend internships to understand the working of the industry. He spoke of the urgent need of updating the curriculum; about building resource centers for training teachers in the area of new technologies including adoption of social media in learning and pedagogy to reach to a larger audience; about pushing overall development of the students by providing additional opportunities; and that the training centers must build electronic ecosystems for effective engagement with student and community alike.

Dr. MP Jaiswal (Director, IIM Sambalpur) spoke on the topic: Digital Disruption in Management Education. He said, "It is mandatory for the students to do live social projects. The 3.0 III (Innovation, Inclusion and Integration) is like a mantra." He spoke about the inclusion of photographic attendance, live projects, digitalizing notes, information and publishing the materials.

Shri H. Chaturvedi (Director, BIMTECH and Alternate President, Education Promotion Society for India) said, "Social Media has evolved as a medium to help Higher Ed institutes connect with the student community across the entire student journey from admissions to alumni relations in a highly effective way."

His speech was followed by Mr Ashish Gupta from Microsoft (Director, Modern Workplace Consumption and Education Product Marketing), who spoke of the usage of Office 365 amongst teachers and students in remote areas, and how the education system is lacking in technology and tools.

PANEL DISCUSSION 1

The topic was Digital Interventions & Innovation in Universities: The Journey ahead. Dr Ravi Kumar Jain (Director, SIBM Hyderabad) moderated a panel discussion with academicians and administrators from Bangalore, Pune and Chennai. The panelists were Mr. Manish Kothari (Managing Director, ISBR Business School, Bangalore); Dr Bharat Agarwal (President, Vishwakarma University, Pune) and Mr. Ashok Varghese (Director, Hindustan University). The panelists discussed and agreed on the need to speed up the advancements of technology in the education system in India.

Special Guest of Honor, Dr. Manpreet Singh Manna, (Director, AICTE) gave an engaging and witty presentation focusing on the major pillars of digital initiatives. He questioned whether all were spending money at the right place. He reckoned that the root problem is lack of innovative ideas and expenditure on unwanted sectors. He also covered in-depth various initiatives AICTE has undertaken such as NAD and SWAYAM MOOC project to help take the education to the masses.

PANEL DISCUSSION 2

The topic was Social Media Platforms in Recruitment, Campus Hiring and Alumni Connect. The dignitaries of the discussion were Mr. Dhananjay Singh (Director, General and National Board Member of National HRD Network); Dr. Neelesh Kumbhojkar (Director, Symbiosis Center for Alumni Engagement), Mr. Prateek Vaidya (Managing Director, Karma Management Consultants Pvt Ltd); Dr. Sandeep Pachpande (Chairman, ASM Group of Institutes). The panelists said, "The Alumni are the brand ambassadors of the institution and adopting social media is mandatory to have connectivity. Proper strategy has to be induced in the use of Social media to promote the brand image of the institution."

The discussion was on the topic 'Unleashing the Potential of New Age technologies in Digital Transformation of Higher Education Institutions - How Learning in the Classroom is Getting Impacted', moderated by Mr. Bhupesh Daheria (CEO, Aegis School of Data Science; Founder, mUni). Panelists who took part in the discussion were Durga Prasad Kakaraparthi (Solution Architect, Amazon); Parikshit Jain (Associate Director, Grant Thornton in India) and Vinnie Jauhari (Director, Education Advocacy, Microsoft). Talking about the amazing opportunities in cloud computing, data sciences and machine learning, Dr. Jauhari said, "It takes classroom learning to a different level by bringing the world to the classroom," making the sessions interesting, innovative, interactive and practical.

A special session on Microsoft in Education was conducted by Ms. Sarah Joshi (Senior Product Manager, Microsoft). She spoke on Microsoft Office 365 and how it enhances teaching and learning experience. Ms Joshi said, "70% of the workforce will be Millennials and GenZ, and it is important to empower education institutions with the best of cloud service and solutions."

Mr Bhupesh Daheria (Founder, mUni) spoke about the AI & Digital Stack for Transforming Higher Education. The landscape of Higher Education has changed and reaching young crowd is a big challenge.

The discussion on the topic Evolving Trends in Recruiting International Students - Impact of Digital and Social Intervention was moderated by Mr. Santhosh Karnanada (Head - Client Relations, QS IGAUGE). The 4 experts were Dr. Vinay Kumar (Director, NMIMS); Dr. Priya Kaushal (Director - International Affairs, CMR University); Mr. Ravi Makhija (Director, TIE-UPS International); Dr. Suneel Sharma (Associate Dean, IFIM Business School, Bangalore). The pointers covered were Brand India as a Study Destination; Evolving trends in Recruitment; Challenges faced by Institutions; how digital and social media is helping institutions in the cause of getting more International students.

The final segment of the event was Valedictory Session in which Prof. Bhimaraya Metri (Director, IIM Trichy) and Mr. Bharat Lal Meena (IAS (R), Ex Additional Chief Secretary, Department of Higher Education, Govt. of Karnataka) were present. Prof. Metri said, "Educators and administrators need to leverage social media marketing to enhance their academic programs, grow their student community and bolster their enrolment procedures. In this present time, globalization is leading to localisation which in turn results in glocalization."

Shri Bharat Lal Meena said, "Indian institutions should have better resources to the students in India. Great leaders have emerged from here. Social media has to be used for the development and betterment of the country. India should use the digital technology in all schools under one umbrella."

A video featuring Shri K Kasturirangan (Chairman, Karnataka Knowledge Council; Former Chairman, ISRO) was played in which he had appreciated the efforts taken by the entire team of ASMA, and also spoke of why digital transformation was necessary for the academia. Near the culmination of the event, India's Top 30 Marketers in Education 2018 Awardswere announced. The initiative aims to honor the top marketing talent working in education vertical in India, who had implemented successful marketing campaigns which drove high ROI for their colleges and universities.

Day 2 of the convention held at The Leela Palace, Bangalore consisted of 6 workshops held by eminent speakers from various fields of education and technology. The workshops were held simultaneously in 2 halls.

WORKSHOP 1 (Track 1) was held by 3 speakers from Microsoft. Ms. Sarah Joshi (Senior Product Manager, Microsoft) conducted an informative session on Artificial Intelligence Classroom/Cloud in Campus. She spoke about overcoming the challenges faced by educators today. Ms. Joshi, who primarily works in the field of higher education, said Microsoft Edu-Cloud empowers educational institutions with best-of-breed cloud service and solutions. She spoke about mobile application management and PC management capabilities. Mr. Ashwin Kumar spoke about evolution of content, pedagogy and technology. Nirav Rawell spoke on understanding Microsoft, imagining academy and its benefits. Relevant e-learning and free demos and videos were projected.

In Track 2, the first workshop was conducted by Dr. Vidya Priya Rao (Founder and Director, Innovatus Marketers Touchpoint LLP) who conducted an interactive session on Student Journey Mapping. Her workshop was related to personalizing the experience of a student through qualitative and quantitative data collection.

WORKSHOP 2 from Track 1 was held by Mr. Parikshit Jain from Grant Thornton in India, who spoke about Blockchain Technology. The primary perspective of the session was about the adoption of Blockchain Technology in the different sectors. The workshop 2 in track 2 was conducted by Mr. Abhishek Ballabh (Co-founder, ExtraaEdge who spoke regarding admissions and how institutions can leverage marketing automations for enrolments in education Institutes.

WORKSHOP 3 of Track 1 was conducted by mUni. Dr. Sanjay Sinvhal talked about revolutionizing attendance through facial recognition. Mr. Mayur Shah spoke about Training Placement Officers account which will showcase the skills of students graphically and forms the basis of job placements. The students account will be accessed by the recruiters who can pick students after viewing their profile. On track 2, a workshop was conducted by Mr. Santosh Karnananda (Head - Client Relations, QS IGAUGE). He explained how the various ranking systems work in QS and mentioned the indicators on which the ranking methodology would be based.

All the workshops held by ASMA were interactive and informative with great response and learning experience for the audience.

ASMA (Adoption of Social Media in Academia), an initiative byFMA Digital, is India’s first research-based initiative which provides an industry benchmark for the academia while sharing social media best practices, and helping them meet their objectives, and increases the brand value of the universities and colleges. ASMA’s research and events have seen participation from over 200+ Universities / Institutions and engaged audience base of over 5000+ academic stakeholders

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